The Thin Blue Ride - Part 1 - Day 17

Ft. Stevens State Park: 0 Miles (RV)

Ride Report: 20 Miles, 139 Total Miles, 17.5 mph avg, 1,447 calories, 256 ft. Climbing.  There being no other plausible explanation for the lack of climbing today, the reader may rightly accuse me of riding on a giant pancake today.  Well, other than riding by a bay for the entire route...

It was gonna be a great day.  Up for a ride, clean up, hop on the scooter w/ Susan and see some sights, then scoot over to Washington (our 7th state) for dinner at a seafood shop in the small town of Chinook.  The weather was supposed to be cloudy this morning with the sun out by noon and temps in the low to mid 60s.  The reader will likely recall my numerous rants about “AccuWeather”.  The weatherguessers there missed the mark again today.  Rain in the morning, sun not out till 1500 or a bit later, as a result temps lower than “predicted”.  You get the picture.  At this point I tire of berating “Accuweather” and will simply refer the reader to one of my previous rants.

So - instead we decided to flip tomorrow’s schedule with today’s.  This made today chore day and tomorrow cheesy tourist day.  A ride did stay in the schedule as planned, but it was colder than planned and I was wetter than planned when I got back.   (Takes deep breath.). But I’m over it now.  On with the day...

First view of the City of Astoria coming in over Young's Bay.  If the reader looks closely the reader will see in the distance the 101 bridge over the Columbia River.  Its just above the white pick-up.

Delta - up close and personal with that same bridge.

This is a pic from the parking lot of the Columbia River Maritime Museum.  Note the big boat thingy in the distance.  There were two more to the rear (aft?) of the Coast Guard Cuter whose nose (bow?) is peeking in on the right side of the pic.  None were moving.  It was low tide and I'm guessing that they're waiting for more water. (draft?)

Avast Matey!  With my display of sea going slang, the Coast Guard guys tried to sign me up.  I politely declined.  36 years in a uniform is enough for me.  Actually, if the reader will look closely they will note that the Cutter is a bit rusty in a couple of places.  Given that we're in a museum parking lot, I suspect the Cutter is on display and owned by the museum.  Alas, as the museum was closed so there was no one for me to ask.  

This is ...well...a really big anchor.  This pic shows up in most blogs of Trans-Am bound riders as its the starting point of the Trans-Am.  So, its pretty much obligatory.  But still cool.  A very nice local lady took the pic for me and when she inquired where I was from and what I was doing in town, I filled her in.  She acted surprised and it was as if she'd never heard of the trans-Am before.  I find that difficult to imagine.  Regardless, she wished me well and we had a nice, if brief, chat.

This is...well...a really big propeller. (screw?)  I read the plaque and the thing weighs 18,000 pounds.  That's 4k more than The Rig loaded.  It was apparently donated by the family of a local seaman.  Delta asked the same lady to take a pic of him with the propeller and I photo bombed him as she did so.  I think it came out well, but he was all cranky.

In fact, he took this pic and when we were discussing it on the way back to The Rig, he told me he wanted it because the anchor reminded him of hauling me all over God's creation.  I told ya he was cranky.

Once we made it back to the campground he asked for the phone to take this one.  He's enamored of these tall pine trees.  The entire campground is full of em.

So, that was the morning jaunt.  After that it was Chore Day...

As evidenced by this pic.  That's Susan's ball-cap just behind the row of silver washing machines facing the reader.  What can I say?  I married a woman as tall as a washing machine.  Though in her defense, they do sit on about a six inch platform...  Susan says they're "really tall" washing machines.  OK...

And this is the pic of The Rig in its temporary home her in Ft. Steven's State Park.  We're surrounded on three sides by these.  Its a very impressive location.

Oh, and Susan made a great dinner tonight. She calls it her La Fiesta meal - after the restaurant in Manhattan from which she appropriated the idea.  (If you're the food police and reading this, I deny any specific knowledge of her thievery.)  I did have a pic of it loaded in the blog today.  However, it has since disappeared.  Our service is wonky here and I had to load some of the pics twice.  This one apparently disappeared.  My apologies to the reader, but it looked delicious.

Till next time...